Attachment cloning

1

When cloning an invoice that has an attachment, I would like to have the attachment also cloned. (The attachment we use is an update of overall schedule of invoice claims and needs to be attached after updating, with the invoice) Perhaps there needs to be an option to either include or not, the attachment in cloning.

2

For my use case this would not be an improvement. The reason:

  • I used attachment to provided supporting / validation information.

  • The information is specific to a particular transaction. The exception being where scheduled payments are made however in that case I want only one copy of the supporting information, typically attached to the first transaction. Later transactions would only have an attachment if there was new information.

  • Attaching the same information to multiple transactions would require check all are accurate and obscure any real changes to the terms and conditions.

  • Obsolete attachments can be deleted from transaction in Manager however with the new History feature they are retained within the business file so still contribute to storage requirements.

Then it will be different to the cloned transactions attachment. So will need to be externally generated and the new document attached to the cloned transaction.

3

The attachment we include is relevant to the invoice involved. If the attachment was cloned, we would then see it as part of the editing process for the new (cloned) invoice. It is not critical but if introduced, particularly if when cloning you had the option not to clone the attachment, then that would seem to give the best of both worlds?

4

You cannot clone an attachment. The transaction view is generated by extracting data from the database and displaying it through a Liquid theme. A clone extracts the same data, fills a similar transaction form, and ultimately displays it through the same theme. In other words, cloning means repeating an internal process.

Attachments were generated by a different application. So Manager cannot clone them. And it does not have the capability to recreate them. So it would have to rely on the underlying operating system to duplicate them. When on server or cloud editions, the server would have to duplicate the attachment through the browser. Obviously, that’s not going to happen.

5

Thanks for providing that understanding. It was a bit of finessing I suppose.

6

If you are not aware of it, any attachment you have attached will appear in the Attachments tab automatically. So you always have ready access to them. View an attachment before you clone the transaction and it will be open. You can then save it and attach it to the clone. So you don’t have to go hunting for the original attachment file somewhere else. Of course, you need to have the application that created the attachment on your computer (or one that can open it). To be clear, this is distinctly different from Manager itself duplicating or cloning the attachment. It is just opening a file with another application, using Manager as the means to launch it.